Concerned about global warming and the urgent need to act now to
protect human lives and the lives of all beings， members of the Supreme
Master Ching Hai International Association in Thailand and Âu Lạc
(Vietnam) organized another climate change conference entitled
『Solutions for a Beautiful Planet.』 During the conference，
distinguished guests and dignitaries from different parts of the world
express their support for the meat-free diet as the single most
effective solution to stop methane emissions and curb global warming.

Held on August １５ at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University in Nonthaburi， Thailand， over ２，５００ guests attended the conference.

Among
the scores of distinguished guests and ambassadors who attended were
Dr. Art-ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya， Member of the Thai Parliament， former
NASA scientist; Mr. Ennoo Suesuwan， Senior Executive Vice President of
the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives; Professor Dawan
Wiwattanadate， Ph. D.， Deputy Director， Energy Research Institute，
Chulalongkorn University; Sir Velelo Gardener Kwepile， Counsellor of
the Embassy of the Republic of South Africa; Sir Howell Howard，
Regional Environment of the Economic Section of the Embassy of the
United States of America;Sir Nikolay N. Pomoshchninov， Minister
Counselor of Embassy of Russia; and Sir Stepan N. Golovin，
representative of Embassy of Russia; Dr. Nguyễn Thọ Nhân， Ph.D.，
specializing in energy studies at Paris University in France; Dr.
Nguyễn Thị Minh Kiều， Ph.D.， M.D.， Chairwoman of Food and Nutrition
Association; and Dr. Ngô Đức Vượng， Ph.D.， environmentalist. Invited as
Guest of Honor， Supreme Master Ching Hai graciously attended via live
videoconference to answer questions from the audience.

In light
of the scientific evidence stressing the grave state of our planet
caused by climate change and the urgent need for immediate action，
Supreme Master Ching Hai affirms the important message she has been
delivering for over the past two decades: we must be organic vegetarian
or vegan， meaning an animal-free diet.

We now invite you to join
us for the rebroadcast of the videoconference on climate change with
Supreme Master Ching Hai entitled『Solutions for a Beautiful
Planet，』held on August １５， ２００９ in Nonthaburi， Thailand.

In recent years, Bangkok is among 13 of the 20 largest cities in the world at risk from rising sea levels. Some areas in Bangkok are under sea level and the highest point is only 3.5 to 5 feet or 1 to 1.5 meters above sea level.

Bangkok is gradually going under at a rate of 4 inches or 10 centimeters cms a year. Natural disasters which came simultaneously and continuously have caused enormous economic and social damage to this country and seriously affected people’s lives and activities. ... Thirty-five percent of the population as I understand it, will be in great danger if the sea levels rise by 5 meters. Just 5 meters. yeah! Typhoons with accompanying flooding have continuously taken place during these recent years, which is a direct result of worsening global warming.

Every single day we are losing up to 270 species of plants and animals because of global warming. In Canada, for example, some of the little birds and creatures that I used to see as a child are no more, they simply don’t exist. And did you know that we have lost 90% of our large sea creatures such as whales? The oceans are dying ? we have 400 dead zones now where nothing lives. This is due to fertilizer runoff largely of livestock contributing to the lack of oxygen which is necessary to support life. The ice caps are melting faster than we had expected. The Arctic ice cap is projected to be melted by the summer of 2012. Huge chunks of ice from the Antarctic ice cap are falling away. And Greenland is melting very quickly as well. Due to rising sea levels, 18 islands have completely submerged beneath the sea with more than 40 other land nations at risk.

Mr. Lin Hung-Chih Lin, a legislator from Formosa (Taiwan):If one person eats vegetarian for a day, it can reduce at least ５ kilograms kg of carbon dioxide dioxide emissions. It will be wonderful awesome if everyone does this. To improve the convenience for vegetarians and enjoyment of the vegetarian diet, we are introducing bills in Formosa (Taiwan) to build a vegetarian-friendly environment. In Formosa (Taiwan), starting since from since July １st this year, all vegetarian products must be labeled with 『vegan,』 『ovo-vegetarian,』 『lacto-vegetarian,』『lacto-ovo-vegetarian』 or 『Wu Shin vegetarian.』All vegetarians can purchase the vegetarian food items based on their needs, and avoid accidentally getting foods that contain animal products.

We hope to create a more vegetarian-friendly environment. Other than In addition to such food ingredient labeling, we currently plan to promote vegetarian food certification, or good vegetarian food recognition to encourage more people to eat vegetarian food and to widely promote the vegetarian diet.

Park Kwang Joon, Administrator of Gangwon Meteorological Administration, in Korea : the Korean government has put together a national strategy for addressing the global warming issue, namely low carbon, green growth and we’re trying to achieve not only new green growth, new growth engines but also sustainable development. Under the national strategy, Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) has annexed the role of monitoring, analysis and the prediction of climate change, particularly focusing on the research on adaptation of climate change, and KMA has actively participated in the relevant international cooperation activities.

In this regard, let me also inform you that KMA will host the ３２nd session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change in Busan, Korea, in ２０１０....On January the １５th ２００７, I believe it was, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who is the chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (ＩＰＣＣ) for the UN, came out publicly and told all of us that there are ３ things that we can do to halt global warming. Number １: Don’t eat meat. Number ２: Ride a bike. And Number ３: Become a frugal shopper. In other words consume less.

Dr. Stephen Schneider, Professor of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University. He’s a lead author, and works with the UN ＩＰＣＣ or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change ４th Assessment. :Unequivocal is not a typical word for scientists so, in this case, they really mean it. And it’s not just because the thermometers tell you this story, it’s because it’s consistent with ９５％ of the mountain glaciers in the world that are melting, including major glaciers that affect the rivers and a lot of other activities in Asia from the Tibetan Plateau. It also occurs because we know the sea levels are rising because as you heat the oceans,they expand.

And in the last ２０ years at least, we’ve been melting Greenland at a faster rate than anybody predicted, and all the ice up there as it runs out into the oceans is also raising sea level. And if that continues or accelerates as many people believe is possible, then we run a real risk of meters of sea level rise. The consequences are very clear. Meters of sea level rise would displace hundreds of millions of people in Asia alone. What else do we know？

Well, we know that hurricanes have been more intense in the last ３０ years than they were before and we don’t make hurricanes. But when you warm up the oceans, that gives them more power. They’re going to get significantly intense in the ２１st century if we keep on warming as we’ve been doing. So, this is very, very significant for Asia because with all the people that live in mega deltas and all those cities within a few meters of sea level, rising sea level and intensifying cyclones, which increases the storm surge and the flooding damage. It’s is not good news when tens of millions of people every few years are moving into cities.

We really work very hard to try to control the pollution that’s creating this problem, we’ll warm up another one to two degrees. That’s the best we can get, in other words, two to three times more than we already have. The worse worst looks like it’s somewhere around four to six degrees over the next century ... So, the ＩＰＣＣ said that there was a possibility of extinction of up to ４０％ of known species if we warm up more than ３ or ４ degree C.

The cause of global warming is determined by the perpetual production of ３ main types of gas that create the greenhouse effect: carbon dioxide (ＣＯ２); methane (ＣＨ４), which is ７２ times more potent than carbon dioxide averaged over ２０ years; and nitrous oxide (Ｎ２Ｏ), which is ３１０ times more potent than carbon dioxide. The major source of these gases is from the livestock industry, as indicated by the United Nations FAO’s report 『Livestock’s Long Shadow.』 About ３６％ of the methane dissolved in the atmosphere is primarily produced by the digestive process of ruminant animals and ６４％ from their urine, which contributes significantly to the development of acid rain. Livestock farming creates ６５％ of nitrous oxide related to human activities, the majority of which comes from chemical fertilizers. Aside from the huge amount of greenhouse gases released, the livestock industry has also detrimentally impacted topsoil and water resources in many parts of the world.

Currently, the livestock industry uses ３０％ of the Earth’s surface primarily for long-term breeding farms, but it also accounts for another ３３％ of globally cultivated land used for producing animal feed. Vast tracts of forest have been destroyed to create grazing pastures for farm animals. For example, ７０％ of the forests in Latin America, such as the Amazon rainforest, have been turned into grazing pastures. Meanwhile, cattle herds trigger large scale topsoil degradation. Approximately ２０％ of grazing pastures are degraded through extreme cattle herding where the topsoil has hardened and eroded. This figure is even higher in dry regions where permanent desertification has occurred.

Dr. Art-ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya, a vegetarian, Member of Thai Parliament, former NASA scientist, engineer, and educator : You know, the northern part in the North Pole area we now find a lot of this methane coming up through the ice because ice is melting and disappearing and methane is now coming up through the ice. And as you know, methane is much worse than gas carbon dioxide for global warming. So, this is a very important problem that we have to take care of because it’s going to speed up the global warming. The temperature will go up much more quickly in the next ３ years or so.

And because our world is a water planet especially around the Pacific area, it’s a huge ocean and when we look from the Moon, it covers almost half the area of the world. So when you have an increase in the weight, increase in the water, there will be more weight on one side than on the other. And our Earth is rotating in space and suddenly, you have more weight on one side than on the other,then you cannot have like a top turning around on its axis anymore; it will start to wobble. So that’s a big problem for our Earth right now, that we have more weight on one side than the other because of the melting of the ice.

We have more water in the ocean and so more weight in the Pacific area than on the other side of the world. So, in order for the Earth to survive, we can do two things. We are living on earth plates. Thailand here is part of the Eurasian plate, consisting of Europe and Asia except for India; we are on a big plate. And you know plates are floating on some liquid

inner core of our Earth, and so it can move fairly easily and it has been moving since many, many years ago, ２５０ million years ago it started to move and it kept on moving. Well, the Earth plates are likely to move more quickly now.

This is what scientists have found out, that the Eurasian plate is now moving towards the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific plate is also moving towards the Eurasian plate. So right now, on the edge where the two plates are joining, it’s starting to push on each other, and this is going to create a lot of problems for those living along the Pacific rim because there is a big movement going on in the Earth plates now. And it will create not only a lot of earthquakes, big tsunamis will start from the Philippines side for example, and this will create tsunamis coming into the gulf of Thailand.

We never had anything like that before, but now there is a possibility that this will take place. And, of course, wherever you have the joint of the Earth plates, you are going to have more earthquakes. And if we look to the eastern side, next to United Stated, you see the area which they call most active rift zone. The most active rift zone is where the plates are separating.

That’s a big problem for all of us. Around Thailand, along the Andaman Sea, we have a joint of the plates and therefore that’s where we had the big tsunami that killed so many people in many, many countries in the past.

Mr. Ennoo Suesuwan, Senior Executive Vice President of theBank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives:ＢＡＡＣ ask the banks to provide credit so we have to provide the appropriate technology to our customers on how to avoid the global warming. We have also the project that we call 『１ million customers, ９ million trees for the king.』 And we have a project to encourage all the energy saving: electricity, water supply, and anything else.

For the farmers, we also promote our customers to do the sustainable agriculture such as the organic farming and also the agro forestry. For our officers, about １４,０００ officers through our country, we also serve them the healthy food. Even in our head office we have the vegetarian food for their own choice, and also all the food in our cafeteria would be safer. And for physical health, for our officers, we have the exercise group, sports group, stretching every day and also have contestants for 『Mr and Mrs. Good Health.』 For the mental health, we have the counselor in the bank and also provide them the training for meditation also.

Dr. Nguyn Thi Nhan, Dr. of Philosophy at the University of Paris，France where he specialized in energy, the former advisor to the Asia Pacific Regional Energy Development Program in Bangkok, former head of the Program of Energy and Environment of the International Organization of Francophone Countries located in Paris, an author, wrote the book 『Energy and Climate Change.』:And we’ve seen on the graph that the temperatures are rising. And they can use scenarios to predict the global warming in the future，at least in the next century，in this century，２１st century and at the end of the ２１st century. In the most favorable conditions，they see that the temperatures would rise about １.８ degree Celsius，and in the most unfavorable conditions，the temperatures will rise above ４ degree Celsius and it must be kept under ２ degree Celsius in order to avoid the dangerous consequences to the Earth.

A recent report released by the United States National Snow and Ice Data Center found that the rate of Arctic ice melt has been speeding up dramatically, with a shrinkage during the month of July equal to 41,000 square miles each day.

Meanwhile, Canadian researchers have already forecast that the entire Arctic ice cap would be gone within a couple of decades, maybe quicker. As the ice disappears, global warming accelerates because of losing the reflective white cover provided by the ice. The scientists also reported that Arctic tundra temperatures have been rising 1 degree Celsius each decade, which is faster than anywhere else in the world.

The critical mass in this case means that the number of people on Earth who have adopted the vegan lifestyle has become high enough that it helps create a kind of momentum you see，for others for others to be more open to join. This number was reached in June of this year，２００９. Till now，we have altogether ４０％ of the population on the planet that have become veg，including vegetarian and vegan，including waterian，solarian，breatherian breatharian，pranarian meaning people who only live on water，who only lives on liquid，who only lives from solar energy，or only live on the chi，the prana energy，or on love from the Divine. So now，we have ４０％ of all this combination. This is surely encouraging.

We need only another ６０％，Dr. Phim. However，we are still working hard to spread the veg message. So，it helps if we all continue informing as many people as we can，not just sit and wait for the critical mass to take effect.

You can show that scientists worldwide have proved that not only meat is unhealthy，but that it is actually like a poison. Eating meat，or any animal products for that matter，is directly linked to heart disease，strokes，and all kinds of cancers. Our distinguished speakers before me have mentioned it to you also. With over １ million new colon cancer patients diagnosed each year and more than ６５５，０００ related deaths by this ailment alone，truly，every aspect of health does benefit from the『Be Veg』approach，because so many toxic and poisonous substances are being removed from the diet through removing meat.

This is not to mention the freedom from worrying about bacteria and other troubling disorders like mad cow disease，which is most sadly always fatal ? . If means anyone who contracts ed mad cow disease ? will be dead，there’s no cure for it. ... Now second，to show a the better way of living found through the health-restoring veg diet，we can offer veg recipes，cooking classes，to show how delicious and fulfilling it is.

Captain Paul Watson ? Founder and President of the Sea Shephard Conservation Society:Not many people realize that half of the fish taken out of the ocean isn’t even eaten by people. It’s fed to livestock. We have turned the pig into the largest marine predator on the planet.

Pig farms are the source of swine flu. We have to stop pig farming. We have to stop the place where the swine flu originated and spread and mutated and become worse and worse every day first. Thus, the root cause of the swine flu virus is our cruel meat-eating habit. that makes us a very cruel being, and not very dignified at that. As long as the meat industry continues, such viruses will continue to be born. After this one, we will have the next and the next and the next and the next, and one of them will be even worse than we can imagine now, and more deadly, as the experts have warned us long ago. The animal farms must be closed. And to do that, we must be vegan.

By the way, the swine flu is by far not the only scary disease - that also comes from or is spread by humans’ cruel treatment of animals. Avian flu, tuberculosis, listeria, Crohn’s disease, mad cow disease, camphylobacter, Staphylococcus aureus, etc., etc. And now, we have its more dangerous form, called MRSA, namely methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, it’s a “superbug” ? meaning there is no antibiotic to cure it, no antibiotic for this superbug. We have it now in our world and its likely source is because we fed the animals too many antibiotics. So, these diseases arose because we over-breed animals and create the conditions for the diseases to form and spread.

Other diseases came from hunting ? another cruelty committed on the poor animals. HIV, the killer of 25 million people since 1981, is from humans’ consumption of primates. And just recently, as you know from the news, people in China are dying from the pneumonic plague, which originated from hunting marmots for food. It’s very contagious and can kill a victim within 24 hours! So, all these diseases, not just the swine flu, could be prevented if only humans turn away from such unhealthy, cruel, violent habits ? the habits of raising, hunting, and eating animal flesh.

Dr. Art-ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya:because the rising sea，it’s rising up all the time. We have more weight in the Pacific Ocean，more so than on the other side of the world. And because of this，there is an imbalance in the world. The world is going around like a top in space，moving around the axis，and it’s steady，it’s peaceful. But then，we start to increase the weight on one side more than the other. So，it’s just like when you play a top，you spin the top，normally the top will spin on its axis steadily，but suppose we put a little bit of clay on one side of the top and then try to spin it again，this time it will start to wobble，it will no longer spin on its original axis.

So is the world. We are going to have a lot of problems because of this imbalance and it’s possible the worst scenario is that it will suddenly change the axis of rotation. This has happened before in our world in the past. The North Pole has not always been where it is. It has changed in the past because the world became hot when we got closer to the sun. Sometimes we are further away from the sun，so we got the Ice Age. So there is a lot of imbalance. Many times there is a change in the axis of the rotation of the world. Well that is the worst scenario that could happen. But also，because of the imbalance in the weight around the world，the earth crust is also moving. And because the earth crust is moving，we are going to getmore earthquakes，we are going to get more tsunamis，we are going to have a lot of problems because when you have tsunamis.

Most animals are in touch with God’s grace already，at every moment of their lives here on Earth. They bring to our planet this divine grace and love，the power of love in its purest form. They are here to help the planet become more elevated. So in a way，their presence itself is like a prayer being answered，because they bring the blessings through them from the Divine to which they are so near. So much more the reason they deserve our respect and protection. The animals are truly noble，gentle beings，selfless，and in harmony with one another，the environment，and with Heaven.

Their role has always been since time immemorial，that is，to bring love and blessing to the world with their pure presence. Even in the physical aspect，scientists have shown time and again how each and every species fulfill a valuable role in nature.

It is true that our efforts to alleviate global warming in the recent few years helped to postpone already the deadline，somehow，somewhat，for some time. Not so long ago we only had about ２ years before we faced the point of no return. Then，as more and more people put in effort，namely by switching to a vegan diet，with a wish to help the planet ? this powerful wish helps and this powerful action helps - so time was added because of each one’s great positive energy through this compassionate diet and well wish，until we had an extension of about ４ years now.

Of course，this is also Heaven’s great merciful grace for giving us this second chance. The deadline，however，does not get postponed forever. In fact，every day on Supreme Master Television，there is a countdown of how many days we have left to change before it is too late. Today is day １２５７.

Everything they feel is worth living for. We can get out of the danger but through the right direction. Our house is on fire but the water hose is right there in front of us. Just pick it up and use it，it’s as simple as that. Just be vegan. And please，be quick. Our days are numbered.